


All the Time in the World

by Infinitely_Odd



Series: Meanwhile, In Night Vale [9]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Awkward Carlos, Carlos and Cecil are Dorks, Carlos is a Nerd, Carlos-centric, Cecil Is Not Subtle, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Angst, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Carlos, POV Carlos, POV Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Pining, Scientist Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), The Scientists Ship Carlos/Cecil, which is a change for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22573987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinitely_Odd/pseuds/Infinitely_Odd
Summary: "Every time I see him I get these pains in my chest, and I just know it's his fault- that bitch!"--i.e. Carlos is dense and stupid. Based upon my favourite quote from AVPM. Set before episode 25.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Pre cecilos - Relationship
Series: Meanwhile, In Night Vale [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553950
Comments: 18
Kudos: 111





	All the Time in the World

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: @oddpyromaniac  
> Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bibliokleptic_aziraphale/  
> @bibliokleptic_aziraphale  
> Good Reads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/99760524-eldritch-abomination

Carlos, the scientist, was as strange a specimen as the ones he studied. He was always on time to the lab, but never anywhere else. Despite being in his early thirties his dark brown hair was streaked with grey, he had glasses he only wore on occasion but never used contact lenses, and always wore a different pair every time people saw him. His lab coat was always pristine, and some assistants had seen him almost collapse in despair whenever some oddity spat at him and got it dirty.

Furthermore, no one ever saw his apartment. He never spoke to anyone outside of work, even if they tried really hard, it always looked like his head was in the clouds. There was also no mention of his family. His mobile phone was recent, unlike the equipment he used, or the car he drove, but there were no numbers on it. No apps, no pictures, nothing. It took months for Carlos to add another contact- and that was the radio host Cecil Palmer's number which had been added at the insistence of Cecil, and Carlos' underlying desire to get the inside scoop, and protect as many people as possible.

But the strangest thing about Carlos was that he was deeply in love with, yet utterly terrified of Night Vale.

The second strangest thing about him was that he couldn't remember how he got to the town in the first place. 

One day, a particularly brave lab assistant asked him how come he chose to live in Night Vale. Carlos froze, in the middle of pouring a beaker full of bubbling liquid into a bigger one. The liquid poured out, splashing everywhere. The lab fell silent. Finally, Carlos moved, smiling faintly. "I didn't move here, not officially. I got a letter from my university allowing me funding for a one year trip away for scientific reasons. I don't remember how I got here. All I remember is waking up one day, packing my stuff, leaving, and winding up here with only my lab coat, my backpack, and the letter. It did specify Night Vale, but I've never heard of it before." He looked down to the large beaker that the liquid had been poured into, and Carlos frowned. "Drat. It's ruined. Nevermind." 

For the first few months, Carlos wandered around Night Vale with a crazed look in his eyes, telling everyone who would listen to get out. To run away and never look back, but none listened. He would rant and rave about seismic shocks, and Richter scales, and how everyone in Night Vale should be dead or at least living in a wasteland. 

Next, it was about time. How clocks didn't work. The youngest lab assistant (Gabby) had called the rest of the team one day in tears because there was something horribly wrong with Carlos. When everyone arrived, they found him at his desk smashing clocks until a viscous black liquid spurted out of them. It was thick like oil but with none of the shine. Suddenly, he stopped, pushing the broken carcass of the clock to the side and slumping over his desk and clutching his hair (which had been newly trimmed, which the radio host had made his feelings about perfectly clear). 

"The clocks don't work," He moaned softly, thumping his fist on the table. "They- time _doesn't work_. Why won't time work? I need to tell Cecil about this."

"Cecil?" Gabby asked hesitantly.

Carlos looked at her as if she'd just asked why grass was green. "The radio host,"

"I thought you thought he was crazy!" Another assistant added. 

"I do, he is, but he's the only way of broadcasting information to the rest of the town, and he's the only one they'll listen to- I think." He pulled out his phone, "Go investigate the passing of time while I'm on the phone, I'll be as quick as possible." 

The five assistants in the lab shrugged and sighed. There was no getting through to Carlos when he was like this; frantically yapping through the phone, begging to Cecil to let him finish talking, and just to listen to him dammit. It seemed he finally got through, Carlos' voice calmed down and he put the phone down with a sigh. "He said he'd broadcast it, though he could be a _little_ less patronising." 

The assistant named Janine said, "At least he always keeps his promises."

And he did. Not even ten minutes later, Cecil was informing the town about the strange occurrences with time, and that they should contact (perfect) Carlos and his team of scientists if they had any concerns or information. However, their lab phone remained silent for the rest of the night. 

* * *

It was almost five months before anyone heard anything else about Cecil. 

Carlos stormed into his lab in a rage, his lab coat swishing behind him like a white cape. He slammed the door closed and threw himself into his chair.

The assistants all looked at one another, sharing a knowing glance. “Everything alright, Carlos?” Siobhan asked.

Carlos had brought out graph paper and was frantically scribbling on it. He then checked his watch, one manufactured outside of Night Vale and that wasn’t filled with black liquid- he checked.

“Carlos?” Janine said, edging towards him. “You’re kinda freaking is out now.”

“It doesn’t make sense!” He exclaimed, throwing his pencil across the room, hitting a government official who was hiding next to the lab’s pet cactus who quickly confiscated it. 

“This is Night Vale- what _does_ make sense?” Said Mohammed, bitterly, who had been quiet up until then.

Carlos whirled around, causing the assistants standing around him to take a step back. “I make sense, usually, science makes sense! I’m not that well versed in biology but I know my way around the body and what is considered normal and what isn’t and it does not make sense!” 

“Stop speaking in riddles,” Gabby said. The others nodded in agreement.

Carlos cocked his head. “So none of you are affected?”

Mohammed sighed, ”By what?”

The lead scientist groaned, sitting back in his chair and running a hand through his growing locks of dark hair. “I’ve been running a series of self-experiments-“

”Ew, TMI!”

”Shut up Janine,” Siobhan snapped.

”-to determine what is causing me to develop strange symptoms.” The head scientist continued, “And now it’s clear that this is an orchestrated attack on Night Vale’s scientific community, lead by Cecil!”

“Are you kidding? He adores you!” Gabby said, crossing her arms. 

“Then how do you explain this?” Carlos demanded, gesturing to the graph he’d made. Along the X-axis was ‘amount of time spent with Cecil (minutes)’, the Y-axis was labelled ‘heart rate (bpm)’. 

It was clear from the line of symmetry that the longer Carlos spent in Cecil’s company the faster his heart rate went up. Each point was also accompanied by notes such as: ‘sweaty palms, weak knees’, and ‘Subject Cecil Palmer smiled at me today’, or ‘nervous tummy before meeting Cecil- poison?’.

The lab assistants shared another, long look. 

“Every time I look at him I get these pains in my chest and I just know it’s his fault- that _bitch!"_

Carlos ran a hand through his perfect hair. A tumbleweed rolled through the lab, despite none of the doors or windows being open, but it went ignored. There was a moment where everyone was processing the situation and Carlos's confession. A second after this, Janine took off her lab coat and threw it on to the floor of the lab. "I quit," She said.

"What? Now?" Carlos exclaimed, standing while Janine went over to her desk and began to gather her things. "But- But I'm going through a crisis and I need your help-" 

"You absolutely do not need my help. How long have you known Cecil for now, almost a year? And you're still convinced, still forcing yourself to believe that he'd want any harm to come to you?" She continued ranting while shoving everything into a backpack. "Carlos he talks about you like sunshine comes out of your arsehole- which scientifically speaking is impossible, but not by Night Vale standards- literally every second word is ' _Carlos this_ ' or ' _Carlos that_ '. It's time you stopped playing with the poor man and either decided to let him down as gently as possible or jump into something that probably scares you which is why you're so deep in your denial." 

Janine zipped up her bag with great difficulty and stared back at Carlos. His eyes were wide, and he looked slightly paler than usual. The rest of the lab assistants looked a strange mixture of impressed and terrified. "So, Carlos the Scientist. What will it be?"

Carlos let out a shaky breath. "I don't understand. There is nothing between Cecil and me."

Gabby added hesitantly, "Didn't he ask you on a date?"

"No!" Carlos exclaimed, "He...he said it was purely for sharing science."

"What about after that?" Mohammed said. "Didn't he ask you out to dinner and you turned him down?"

This time, Carlos's cheeks flushed red. "I- I was _busy_."

"Ugh, are all scientists this dense? Let me know when you've figured it out, Carlos. Until then think long and hard about something other than science, for once. I'll tell the university you say hi." 

She slammed the door, and the sound of her car starting and driving into the distance sounded, growing fainter the further she drove. Slowly the assistants went back to their normal duties, while Carlos pretty much collapsed onto his desk. In his hand was the number Cecil had given him, in the other was the spreadsheet. On the wall in front of his desk was a Night Vale Community Calendar. Written in purple writing on one of the days was 'Carlos's One Year Anniversary!'. It looked distinctly like Cecil's writing, but that was impossible, he'd never been into the lab before. 

Cecil. Was he a friend to Carlos? No, he was at best a colleague, an inside view on the weird town, at worst he was a nuisance. It didn't matter that Carlos wanted to run his hands through his hair, or to find out his worst fears, his best memories. He wanted to see how Cecil lived, how he took his coffee- or if he took tea instead. What his favourite meals were. If he had any interesting speech patterns, like Carlos's neighbour who spoke entirely in iambic pentameter. These were all for his very intense and important research. It didn't matter that, if he had wanted to, Carlos could have called Cecil and asked him these things. That felt like cheating.

Learning all those things would only count if Carlos did it by himself. It wasn't anything more than curiosity, definitely not what Janine had implied. But her words had struck something within him. A single droplet falling into calm waters, slowly causing bigger and bigger waves. 

With a heavy feeling, Carlos pushed all the feelings down. A letter from the university sat heavy in his desk drawer. The question of if he would be extending his stay in Night Vale sat heavy on his mind. He didn't know what to do. Carlos wasn't as resentful of the town, he was 'going native' he supposed, but now it didn't feel like such a bad thing. That being said, he missed his family and teaching. But he loved the people here. Josie, Dana, John Peters (you know, the farmer?). Cecil was in there too. Sweet, naive, genuine Cecil. He didn't have time for anything outside of friendship right now, not that he felt anything for Cecil. Carlos placed the graph he'd made into the drawer along with the letter and made himself some coffee. 

It was fine, his response wasn't needed for a while yet. And it was still a few weeks until the one year anniversary. His phone lit up with a text from Cecil, and that familiar warm sensation bloomed in his chest. Even if he did have feelings for Cecil- which he didn't- there would be time to sort things out after he'd given the university an answer, after the one year anniversary.

Carlos had all the time in the world. 

**Author's Note:**

> hey fam, so first of all i want to thank you for the comments on my last fic. i'm not in a good place rn, but thank you for letting me get that out. i hope you all know that anyone who reads, comments, kudos's, or bookmarks any of my fics means the world to me, and i'll always be thankful for those who read my stuff.
> 
> this one is a little fluffier! I'm a huge AVPM stan, not so big on Starkid's other stuff, but I enjoy AVPM and AVPS. One of my favourite lines is the one that this fic is based on and I just had this image of carlos feeling like ron in the musical and tah dah this fic was born!
> 
> Spoilers i have another fic in the works which is based upon a very popular tik tok trend (not sure if its as popular now as it was when i first saw it) that i love and hate at the same time. if you want to guess go ahead, but god i think it's the stupidest idea ever and i cant wait to write it. another is a song fic i'm very proud of, so yeah, look forward to those! oh, as a side note i was thinking about opening commissions for fanfic writing? would anyone be interested? if you're not its okay, it was just an idea that i had. 
> 
> okay, thanks again for all the support. i really appreciate you guys. see you soon


End file.
